[thelist] network switch - ok to transfer files?

Ken Schaefer ken.schaefer at gmail.com
Tue Sep 14 20:44:36 CDT 2004


Hi,

If you can not ping one machine from the other then:
a) you have some kind of firewall problem (eg there is a firewall on
one, or both, machines blocking ICMP traffic). Generally, if ICMP
packets are being blocked, then so are other types (eg SMB traffic,
NetBIOS Name Resolution etc)

   -and/or-

b) you have some kind of routing problem (eg you have misconfigured
the IP addresses of the two machines, so that they do not think they
are on the same network or similar)

A switch generally operates at a lower level than IP (unless it's a
layer 3 switch, but those are generally used in corporate environments
where you may have the need for VLANs)

A switch would generally only prevent communication if there was
something wrong with the MAC address of one or more computers. The
difference between a hub and a switch is that a hub rebroadcasts
packets that come in on one interface on all other interfaces (which
may cause excessive collisions on a busy network) whereas a switch
records the MAC addresses of network cards connected to each
interface, and only rebroadcasts incoming packets on the interface
where the destination MAC address is (or all interfaces if it doesn't
know where the MAC address is).

One other problem that may be an issue is if you are using the wrong
type of cable (eg you are using a cross-over cable connected to a
'straight through' port on the switch). However, if this was the case,
no communication would be possible for the computer in question (so,
if both computers can access the internet via your router, then you do
not have a cabling problem)

I would start by disabling all firewalls that you have on the two
machines (perhaps disconnect from the 'net if you have no other
protection, ie no NAT/router), and then ensure that you can ping one
machine from the other, and visa versa.

HTH

Cheers
Ken


On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 02:25:11 +0100, Alex Beston <alex at deltatraffic.co.uk> wrote:
> >Are you using Windows?
> 
> using XP
> 
> > Can you check if you still have NETBEUI installed? Win95 and Win98
> > won't see host names in a LAN if you don't have it. If you have it,
> > try adding the target machine's IP address
> 
> how do I find that? ive tried netstat -a but the target machine cant be
> found when i ping it...
> 
> > and host name to your hosts file, usually found in your Windows
> > installation directory. If it's not there, (like c:\windows\hosts)
> > then open hosts.sam (template) and add your target machine, then save
> > as hosts.
> 
> this is the product im using
> 
> *http://sitecom.com/products_info.php?product_id=158&grp_id=5
> 
> someone on another list mentioned that *managed or un-managed switches
> 
> have a bearing on the problem
> 
> 
> 
> Alex
> 
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